


Material Girl

by summer_of_1985



Series: One Summer Can Change Everything [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: El experiences brain freeze, Episode: s03e02 The Mall Rats, F/M, Fix-It, Ice Cream, Mike and El don't break up, Scoops Ahoy!, Will gets picked up by Jonathan after Lucas and Mike confront the girls, before anyone asks, starcourt mall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 09:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19765816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summer_of_1985/pseuds/summer_of_1985
Summary: The fic idea that I sent to serendipitousrambles - where Will points out that Max and El are in the mall (you know the scene?) El doesn’t ‘dump his ass’, and Mike uses his $3.50 and gets El ice cream as a way of saying sorry for keeping her to himself.





	Material Girl

El nodded her head, making the coca-cola in the girls had exploded, and the girls start giggling and ran away, with massive grins on their faces.

Max holds El’s hand as she drags the smaller girl away. “See, what did I tell you? There’s more to life than stupid boys,” Max said, as El joined in at the end _stupid boys_ , and they had to stop running because if they did - they would fall over. 

* * *

Will sits on the right side of Mike, who was sat on the right side of Lucas. All three were getting extremely bored. “Can we play _Dungeons and Dragons_ now?” Will asks, feeling like he just wants to collapse into his seat.

“No!” Lucas and Mike collectively say, as two girls run into Will’s eyesight, a flaming red-head and amused brunette, giggling and laughing until the red-head had to sit down before she collapsed. When she sat down, it was Max, and from that, Will guessed El was with her.

“Your girlfriends are over there,” Will commented, looking at other shops, and didn’t see Mike look at Will in absolute horror, they all knew El wasn’t allowed out (the only night she got was that of the Snowball last year), and here she was, having fun and laughing - with MAX! 

* * *

Max was curled over, laughing her heart out, the image of Stacy’s face ingrained in her brain. “Oh my god! Did you see her face?!” Max gasped for breath between her words, pressing her hand to her heart, as El made an extremely accurate representation of the face Stacy made.

They were interrupted by two boys making their way to them. None other than Lucas Sinclair and Mike Wheeler, the girls' boyfriends, and they both shared a look of ‘why are they here?’

“What, are you doing here?” Mike asked, taking El’s hand - and she dropped it, standing at Max’s side.

“Shopping,” is all El said, as she simply looked at Mike with her unwavering, softly blinking eyes.

Mike sighed and looked at Max, “What were you thinking? You know she’s not allowed out yet!” Mike said, not shouting to draw the attention of the other shoppers in Starcourt Mall.

Max simply shrugs, as she reaches over and fixes a stray hair at the back of El’s head - showing how close they had gotten in the span of a couple of hours.

“El, what I said, about Nana, that she was sick? I lied, and I’m really sorry,” Mike admitted, not really caring what Lucas is thinking - just because Max had dumped him 5 times (from what he can remember), doesn’t mean that Lucas’s advice will apply to his relationship with El.

Mike knew El had been lied to her entire life, and it made him feel crappier that he was currently in that list of people. He wanted to fix this relationship in whatever way he could, and the only way he knew how (thanks to his mom) was ice cream.

“Even though I have $3.50, I was trying to get something for you, but it’s kinda difficult, but why don’t we go get some ice cream? And you can show me the new things you got?” Mike offers, pointing the bag hanging from El’s wrist.

No matter what Max said, El could never deny Mike - he was her favourite person on the planet, she technically couldn’t deny him anything... She smiled up at him, making Mike sigh in relief (knowing without words that she had forgiven him), as he pulled her into his arms and hugged her warmly. 

* * *

Mike watched as El’s face was practically pressed against the glass where all the plastic ice cream tubs were sat. He gave a smile to Robin, who recognised his as one of the kids that Steve ‘babysits’.

“Hey dingus, your children are here!” She called into the back, and the glass door slid open, and Steve’s face saw Lucas, Max, Mike and the tiny frizzy-haired body of Eleven.

He sighed, and went around, he wanted to deal with them, rather than having Robin getting more and more frustrated. He pushed her towards the back, as she had a **You Win | You Suck** board for whenever Steve tried to score with a girl.

“Are you even allowed out?” Steve asked when his eyes locked on El, who was looking at all the options for ice cream.

El giggled, as did Max, and Mike shuffled over, wrapping his arm around his girlfriend as she continued to look at the options in front of her. Steve could tell that she had no idea what flavour of ice cream she wanted.

“Do you want to try some?” Steve asks, leaning his elbows on the counter and looking down at El, who looked up at him with her big, deer-like eyes, and Mike ran his fingers through her hair.

“Why don’t you try vanilla? You can always add things to it, or try other ones?” Mike offered, pointing to the white tub that held the vanilla ice cream, that was rather popular in the past weeks since Starcourt Mall opened.

She nodded and watched as Steve got a little plastic spoon and scooped it into the vanilla ice cream. There was enough on it for El to have a decent taste of the frozen treat, but not too much to overwhelm her. She takes the little red spoon from Steve and gently puts it in her mouth. The coldness shocks her at first, but the taste was very sweet against her tongue, making her smile.

She nods up at Mike, smiling happily, with the spoon still in her mouth. Mike smiles back at her and asks Steve for vanilla with sprinkles for El and chocolate for himself. And thanks to Steve being a decent guy, he gave them what was called a ‘discount’.

“3 dollars, Michael,” Steve asks, as Mike reaches into his pocket and pulls out his 3 dollar bills and the coins of 5 and 10 cents that made up the 50 cents he had remaining. Allowing El to hold the coins, he handed the dollars over to Steve and watched as Steve put the vanilla and sprinkles, and the chocolate ice cream into two separate bowls and handed them over.

Mike takes the two bowls, and guides El over to a table, as Max and Lucas got their ice cream (the former getting strawberry - which had actual strawberry pieces in it, and the latter getting mint chocolate chip). 

* * *

Max and Lucas joined the pair at the table, with their respective ice creams in their respective bowls. They sat across from Mike and El, Mike had his arm around El, who was happily eating her ice cream rather quickly.

“You might want to slow down there, El, before-” Lucas started to say, before El dropped her spoon and grabbed the sides of her head, whining in pain.

Brain freeze. Mike put his spoon in his bowl, and wrapped his arms tighter around El, and gently rubbed her back and one of her temples. Mike was rocking her back and forth, as he comforted her through this foreign pain.

She looked at her friends, confused as to why this was happening to her. “It’s called brain freeze, El,” Max says, reaching over the table and rubbing the crease in her elbow.

El made a whine of complaint, looking up at Mike with wide and terrified eyes. “It won’t actually freeze your brain, it’s just the blood vessels in your brain narrowing because of the sudden coldness of the ice cream,” Mike explains, remembering when Mr Clark had taught them about the brain (which included what causes a brain freeze).


End file.
